What is a Solid State Drive (SSD)?

Are you wondering how a solid state drive works? SSDs function like hard drives, but with different technology. Like USB drives, SSDs use flash memory to store data, which is accessed digitally. A hard disk drive (HDD) uses a spinning platter and an arm that moves across the platter to read each portion of data. As a result, SSDs deliver nearly-instant boot and load times because they don’t have to mechanically seek out data on a spinning platter.

What Does a Solid State Drive Do?

Inside your computer, the storage drive (whether an SSD or an HDD)works alongside your system’s memory and processor to access and use data. Solid state drives use different technology than traditional hard drives that allow SSDs to access data faster, improving your computer’s performance. This data includes things like your operating system, games, images, or music.

For example, if you want to access data from a spreadsheet and perform some basic edits, here’s what’s going on behind the scenes:

Programs and files are housed on your storage drive. In this case, the spreadsheet you want to access.

2. When you make a request to open the spreadsheet, your computer’s processor transfers the program data from your storage drive to RAM for short-term access and use. Because SSDs have nearly-instant data transfer speeds, they speed up the data transfer process, which is the amount of time it takes to load programs and files.

In addition to being faster, SSDs are more durable because they don’t have moving parts that can be broken or wear out, especially when they’re moved around. Plus, they use less energy, saving battery life.

Form factors explained

Solid state drives are defined by three form factors; these are: the size of the drive, the type of connection interface, and the physical space the drive will occupy in the computer.

2.5-Inch SSD

The standard form factor for an SSD is 2.5-inch, which fits inside the drive bay of most laptop or desktop computers. Because many users replace their hard drives with solid state drives, the 2.5-inch drive has become a standard for all HDDs and SSDs. They are designed to minimize the need to replace the connecting interface cables, making the transition to a higher performance drive as easy as possible. See the top 10 reasons to upgrade to an SSD.

mSATA SSD

A smaller form factor SSD is called mSATA. mSATA SSDs are one-eighth the size of a 2.5-inch drive and are designed to plug into an mSATA socket on a system’s motherboard. mSATA drives are used in ultra-thin and mini devices, or as a secondary drive in desktops.

M.2 SSD

The smallest form factor for SSDs is called M.2, which is about the size of a stick of gum. M.2 SSDs attach to the motherboard via an M.2 socket and are designed for space-constrained tablets and ultrabooks.